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February 20, 2004

L.A. Confidential, and other books that have become movies

I just finished reading James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential, the first piece of crime-genre fiction I’ve read in years. It was complex and engrossing, and I had a hard time putting it down on my recent transit flight from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I was particularly struck by how different it was from the 1997 movie of the same name — and it left me with a lot of respect for whoever adapted it into a screenplay, since the screen version of L.A. Confidential does a very good job of using the same characters to tell a rather different and more condensed story. I had a similar reaction when I read Michael Ondjaate’s The English Patient: I found the book to be a much different story from the movie, though both versions worked well for me.

There’s an old clich

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Category: Readings from the book world
Related Posts: What do I do with all my books?, Don George’s new books column, Trip Lit, 100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time


One Response to “L.A. Confidential, and other books that have become movies”

  1. Jen Leo Says:

    Hmmmm….hey Rolf, is this post all about your research? Are you studying what kind of writing you have to do in order to have the book get a movie option afterwards?

    If in the next three years it pans out, I want a ticket to the opening.

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